soul

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soul

Used In the OT of the principle of life, as when God breathed into Adam (Gen. 2: 7), and thus ‘soul’ referred to the whole living human person. Later the book of Wisdom (9: 15) introduces the Greek view, in which the ‘body’ is distinct from the imperishable ‘soul’. In the NT ‘soul’ means ‘life’.
So NRSV and REB of Luke 12: 20, but AV, RV, and NJB have ‘soul’. The Greek idea of an immortal soul different from the body has come into the NT at 1 Pet. 1: 9 and retained a place in Christian theology. Paul's reference to ‘spirit and soul and body’ (1 Thess. 5: 23) does not imply a threefold division of the human person: ‘soul and body’ means a living, not a dead, body. For Christian
theologians ‘body’ and ‘soul’ are different aspects of one substance; an evolved human person for whom resurrection may be
God's gift.